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SkinTrack turns your arm into a smartwatch

SkinTrack turns your arm into a smartwatch

A research team based at the Carnegie Mellon University Research Lab has this week unveiled something interesting.

Called SkinTrack, the Future Interfaces Group unveiled it as a brand new user interface that can transform your skin into a user interface, this could be used for many devices in the future, however, possibility the most obvious are smartwatches, smart bracelets or other wrist wearables.

“SkinTrack is a wearable system that enables continuous touch tracking on the skin. It consists of a ring, which emits a continuous high frequency AC signal, and a sensing wristband with multiple electrodes. Due to the phase delay inherent in a high-frequency AC signal propagating through the body, a phase difference can be observed between pairs of electrodes.”

“SkinTrack measures these phase differences to compute a 2D finger touch coordinate. Our approach can segment touch events at 99% accuracy, and resolve the 2D location of touches with a mean error of 7.6mm. As our approach is compact, non-invasive, low-cost and low-powered, we envision the technology being integrated into future smartwatches, supporting rich touch interactions beyond the confines of the small touchscreen.”